13 CAN-DO Members Receive Clemency on August 3, 2016

CAN-DO wants to thank everyone for all your hard work, support and tenacity in this herculean effort to save people from more years, if not a lifetime of suffering behind bars. With your help, 13 CAN-DO members received clemency in the last batch that President Obama granted on August 3, 2016. A historic 214 people were given back their freedom.

Only 10 women were on this last list of 214 recipients! Of those ten,SIX were receiving assistance from CAN-DO and benefiting from our Guardian Angel program. That’s something we are very proud of. FOUR of the SIX were on our Top 25!

CAN-DO Founder, Amy Povah served time with Josephine Ledezma at FCI Dublin. CAN-DO typically does not assist people with clemency petitions but there have been a few that CAN-DO could not let fall through the cracks. Josie was one of those people who was not going to receive assistance to get her petition filed, so we reached out to Jason Hernandez of Crack Open the Door; the first latino to receive clemency from President Obama. Without hesitation he agreed to help Josie get her petition filed. CAN-DO sent Jason’s Op Ed to Fusion that focused on Josie’s case and Jason rallied the hispanic community to get behind Josie, plus additional Latino cases. Josie’s clemency is a heartwarming victory for everyone involved, but mostly for Josie and her family, who were also hands on, especially Josie’s daughter, Lizette Ledesma. Channel 7 interviewed the family and Fox 11 L.A. aired a second, follow up segment on Josie’s clemency with Amy Povah and Miquelle West (daughter of #3 on Top 25 Michelle West) as guests.

Please consider signing this petition for our Top 25 Women – we have already replaced the names of those who received clemency with four additional deserving applicants on Top 25 Women webpage.